Nov

Visual Wordplay for the Bilingual Brain

by Eva Boynton on November 14, 2017

A cartoon of a woman pulling a leg and hands grabbing her hair, showing how visual wordplay with Spanish and English proverbs tickles the bilingual brain. (image © Eva Boynton).

“Ouch! You’re pulling my leg!”
“¡Ay! ¡Me estás tomando el pelo!” (“Ouch! You’re grabbing my hair!”)
© drawing by Eva Boynton

Spanish and English Proverbs in Pictures

While living in Mexico, I heard phrases whose literal translations created odd visual images for me and confused my developing bilingual brain. For example: “Me estás tomando el pelo!” (You are grabbing my hair!”). My initial bewildered response? I checked to see if my hands were minding their business at my side.

With further explanation, I soon understood that such strange phrases were proverbios y refranes (proverbs and sayings), wise and colorful ways to make a point. In this case: “You are pulling my leg.”

As I started collecting Spanish proverbs, something else began to appear. Oh, I saw that the essence of a proverb often translates from language to language even when the metaphors and imagery vary.

For me, someone who thinks visually, these proverbs were waiting to be translated into cartoonish illustrations that bring their wordplay to life.

1. Together is Always Better

Proverbs and sayings state a general truth and often offer advice metaphorically. Has anyone ever told you, “Two heads are better than one”?

A cartoon of a man with four eyes and a woman with two heads, illustrating how visual wordplay with Spanish and English proverbs tickles the bilingual brain. (image © Eva Boynton).

There’s something different about this guy . . .
© drawing by Eva Boynton

How about the Spanish equivalent: “Cuatro ojos ven mas que dos” (“Four eyes see more than two”)? Whether there’s an extra head or more than two eyes, collaborating with others always helps to solve problems.

2. You Can’t Hide What’s Inside

Whether in Spanish or English, proverbs represent values people hold. They reflect shared experience and the wisdom that arises from it. For example, “Fine feathers don’t make fine birds” communicate that it’s not the elegant coat and shiny earrings that define a person, but rather what is underneath.

A cartoon of a cockatoo and a monkey with a silk dress sitting on a branch, illustrating how visual wordplay with Spanish and English proverbs tickles the bilingual brain. (image © Eva Boynton).

What banana?
© drawing by Eva Boynton

In Spanish, the feathers metaphor takes on a different form: Aunque la mona se vista de seda, mona se queda (“Although the monkey is dressed in silk, she remains a monkey”). The true nature and that fuzzy monkey tail cannot be hidden by silken decoration.

3. Pay Attention or Learn Your Lesson

Proverbs and sayings touch every aspect of life. “You snooze you lose,” said a man who quickly slipped into my parking spot. That jolted me into the present after being distracted by a pretty view. The proverb had it right with its warning not to hesitate and miss an opportunity.

A cartoon of a shrimp sleeping on a raft going down a stream, illustrating how visual wordplay with Spanish and English proverbs tickles the bilingual brain. (image © Eva Boynton).

Zzzz..nothing to worry about…zzzz
© drawing by Eva Boynton

Maybe the raft is incredibly comfortable, but this shrimp is about to learn the same lesson—in Spanish: “Camarón que se duerme se lo lleva la corriente” (“A sleeping shrimp gets carried away by the current”).

4. Beware of Musical Chairs

There are many English and Spanish proverbs with warnings about losing something you already have. In Spanish, “El que se fue a Sevilla, perdió su silla” (“He who left for the town of Sevilla, lost his seat.”) is a good reminder to pay attention.

A cartoon strip of a woman taking the chair of a man who left his seat, showing how visual wordplay with Spanish and English proverbs tickles the bilingual brain. (image © Eva Boynton).

I was only gone ONE minute!
© drawing by Eva Boynton

Not all proverbs are a beautiful slice of wisdom. Sometimes they can be sarcastic, to the point, and biting. If someone took my seat and chanted, “Finders keepers, losers weepers,” I would most likely furrow my brow, cross my arms, and . . .

5. What Looks Nice Sometimes Bites

“Every rose has its thorn . . . every cowboy sings his sad, sad, song” is more than a couple of lines from an eighties song by the band Poison. “Every rose has its thorn” is also a famous proverb with advice on the nature of things—something that appears beautiful and perfect can have its sharp side.

A cartoon of a rose poking its thorn at a bee holding honey, showing how visual wordplay with Spanish and English proverbs tickles the bilingual brain. (image © Eva Boynton).

And I thought you smelled nice!
© drawing by Eva Boynton

When I asked my husband for an example of the proverb in Spanish, he came up with, “Hasta las abejas que tienen miel, tienen aguijón” (“Even bees with honey have stingers”). He smiled and elaborated in Spanglish, “You are sweet and cute, pero cuando te enojas, tienes aguijón” (but when you are angry, you have a stinger). Perfect, I wrote that one down.

As my pen marked the page, I wondered about the significance of a rose versus a bee. What might the choice say about the culture or the language?

If you have a bilingual brain, try out some bi-visual wordplay of your own. You may find yourself feliz como una lombriz (happy as a worm) when you think in Spanish and “happy as a clam” when your clever brain turns to English. And please share the bilingual proverbs you come up with in the Comments.

A cartoon of a smiling clam and a dancing worm with maracas, showing how visual wordplay with Spanish and English proverbs tickles the bilingual brain. (image © Eva Boynton).

Nice maracas!
© drawing by Eva Boynton

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Becoming Bilingual/Language & Culture/Proverbs & Sayings/Wordplay

Sep

A Tale of Two Jungles

by Eva Boynton on September 11, 2017

Trees in the jungle and a a city monument, symbolizing life in the jungle of Quintana Roo and the concrete jungle of Mexico City (images © Sam Anaya).

From the Mayan jungle to the concrete jungle
© Sam Anaya

Sensing Life in Quintana Roo & Mexico City

A symphony plays before me in an outdoor theater. The sun passes through a roof of leaves, tree branches crawl up and around the doorways, and rain delicately drizzles upon the earthen seats. This is the Mayan jungle in Quintana Roo, Mexico.

I had arrived here from another theater where sunlight illuminates towering structures and passes through glass windows. The red, yellow, and green of signal lights reflect in the puddles of afternoon rains. This is the concrete jungle of Mexico City.

Sometimes you have to see—feel, taste, and hear—things differently in order to sense their similarities. From 2015 to 2016, I lived in both a thick tropical forest and a crowded city. Although these two environments could not be more different, I found my sensory experiences revealing theatrical parallels.

Oh, I see more than just urban versus rural. I sense life in two jungles that are not all that different: one in Quintana Roo and the other in the middle of Mexico City.

Listen to the Symphony

In Quintana Roo, I wake up to parrots chattering and to a “swoosh” of wings as they fly off from the trees. Neighboring birds sing to welcome the day. Their overlapping calls vary in note and rhythm.

A Motmot bird in the jungle, illustrating life in Quintana Roo (image © Sam Anaya).

A blue-crowned motmot (Toh in Mayan), adds a song to the eclectic symphony.
© Sam Anaya

Listen with me to an expansive aviary that stretches for thousands of miles around me:

I also hear the chopping of wood in the nearby pueblo. I smile at the familiar call; “Booooooxxx (Bo-sh)! Panchoooooo!” Down the dirt road, our neighbor Máxima yells for her two dogs, a yellow lab and a black and orange chihuahua. I wonder if they are off following their noses through the jungle.

Back in the concrete jungle, I wake up to another symphony of sounds. This time, I hear a classical melody from outside the window; a woman plays her violin on the street corner.

A woman playing violin on the street in Mexico City, showing that sound helps us see things differently (image © Eva Boynton).

Morning serenade in Mexico City
© Eva Boynton

The sounds of doors opening and closing overlap with voices of family farewells as they head to work and school. I listen to this musical composition as the walls become windows, connecting apartment worlds for miles and miles.

I smile when a familiar voice crescendoes from the courtyard: “Gelatinnnnaaaaaaaass!” It’s Señora Ruano wheeling her cups of gelatin through the neighborhood. I wonder how many people will come out to buy her colorful treats.

Taste and Smell the Streets

The scent of the air in the Mayan jungle sends me to Máxima’s house. On the way, I smell the leaves of epazote, a Mayan herb, standing out among the jungle’s varied plants. I gather some leaves as I remember their lemony flavor, essential to black beans and quesadillas.

Máxima invites me to taste her caldo de carne (meat soup). My eyes squeeze shut from the spice hitting my tongue. She takes me onto a dirt path where a habanero pepper plant grows. She laughs as she shows me the tiny secret ingredient to her green–hot soup.

A hand holding two habanero peppers, illustrating life in Quintana Roo (image © Sam Anaya).

Some green peppers are red-hot in the Mayan jungle.
© Sam Anaya

In Mexico City, scents in the air always invite me to the downtown market. Leaving my apartment, I smell the limes growing from a manicured garden in the courtyard. I slip a couple into my bag, remembering how well their flavor goes with everything in Mexican cuisine.

A vendor with a plate of tacos and a spoon of salsa, showing life in Mexico City (image©alexsalcedo/iStock).

In the unique buffet of senses, first comes smell and then, undoubtedly, taste.
© alexsalcedo/iStock

At the market, a taco vendor waves me over to try his tacos al pastor (shepherd tacos with pork). I dip a taco into the salsa verde (green salsa), thinking it will be less spicy than the red one. Immediately, my eyes start watering, and the vendor laughs as he tells me to try the salsa roja (red sauce) next time.

Feel the Texture of the Walls

Paths in the Mayan jungle are decorated by walls of smooth ferns, spiky ceiba trees, and firm chic palm leaves. I touch the bark of a chicozapote tree. It is rough and has deep lines running from root to branch.

The trunk of a chicazapote tree, showing one aspect of life in Quintana Roo (image © Sam Anaya).

Paths are enclosed by a green hallway. Here, nature is the structure that gives proof of time passing.
© Sam Anaya

My fingers trace the man-made lines that cut through the natural patterns of the tree bark. I imagine the Mayas who made those marks first, gathering the sticky resin to use as glue for their ancient structures. I carefully trace the grooves.

Such trees show up in the cities of Mexico, proving that even in the concrete jungle, nature reaches and changes structures. My fingers touch the peeling paint of old wood doors in Mexico City. I am careful not to take any of their splintering wood with me.

An old door with chipping wood and paint, showing life in Mexico City (image © Eva Boynton).

Trees become doors for stone walls of Mexico City.
Here, too, they stand tall through time and weather.
© Eva Boynton

See the Vistas

When I’m in the Mayan jungle, I take an evening walk to my favorite vista point and witness the forest changing from dusk to dark. I stop at a busy intersection where ants cover the ground in organized lines, monkeys swing from trees, and butterflies swirl by.

A monkey swinging from a tree in the jungle in Mexico, showing how a different vista can help us see things differently and see life in Quintana Roo (image © Sam Anaya).

Trees are pathways for the residents of the Mayan jungle. Play and survival intersect here.
© Sam Anaya

From the roof of an abandoned building, I take in more of the evening view. I look down to see the intersection of jungle life. Fireflies turn on their lights and illuminate the dirt path below. Parrots return to rest in the trees. I watch the horizon turn from a lush green to a black backdrop for leafy silhouettes.

When the sun starts to set in the Mexico City jungle, I head downtown to the roof of a museum and watch the city’s evening transition. There’s a busy intersection there, too, where traffic zooms by and people file in and out of buses.

When cars stop, a man balances a bike on his head and does a juggling act. Kids play soccer, and a woman sells a colorful array of balloons.

A man juggles while balancing a bicycle on his head in Mexico City, showing life in Mexico City (image © Eva Boynton).

Like the Mayan jungle, the concrete jungle’s intersections are full of life:
travel, performance, and entrepreneurship.
© Eva Boynton

Streetlights and car headlights turn on to illuminate an asphalt maze. The horizon changes from colorful architecture to dark silhouetted rectangles.

Sensing life in Quintana Roo and Mexico City, I see two jungles where the inhabitants of each balance creativity, spirit, and survival. Some may feel that one jungle is cruder, dirtier, or more arcane than the other. But in the evening light, I see their similarities; I see two very vibrant jungles.

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Cultural Encounters/Mexico

Aug

Pink Transportation Takes the Wheel

by Eva Boynton on August 15, 2017

A woman wearing a pink scarf and driving a pink taxi, illustrating the opportunity for women to work for women's rights and gender equality with pink transportation (image © Hannah Arista).

Two percent of taxi drivers are female while sixty percent are passengers.
She Taxis empowers women to jump into the driver’s seat.
© Hannah Arista Photography

Steering Toward Women’s Rights and Gender Equality

PINK, PINK, PINK! Bubblegum, watermelon, flamingo, rose, pink panther, punch pink, and HOT pink are just a few of the rosy shades taking to city streets today. Together, all things pink create a public visual statement of solidarity with women’s rights.

A pink taxi in London, showing a pink transportation alternative to help women advance women's rights and gender equality (image © Ken/Flkr).

It sounds a little like the pink DIY-knitted “pussyhats” movement, right? But the wave of fuchsia, to which I refer—Pink Transportation—came before the worldwide flash flood of pink.

Pink Transportation, also known as PT, addresses gender equality as it strives to improve both women’s mobility and life beyond the steering wheel.

A Long Time Coming . . . and Not Without Debate

Women-only transportation can be traced back to 1909 in New York as part of the women’s suffrage movement. At that time, “suffragette cars,” passenger cars reserved for women only, ran during rush hour on the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad’s “Hudson Tube.”

Although they appeared successful, the cars ran only for six months. They came close to becoming a more permanent installation, but lost the debate to people who believed “. . . men are the best protection that women have in a crowded car.”

Suffragettes protesting in New York for women's rights and advance gender equality (image © New York Times/Wiki Commons).

New York’s suffrage movement inspired the first women-only transportation.
by Paul Thompson [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Even in contemporary times, women are confronted with gender inequality on public transportation. Often, women are given advice regarding how to navigate: “avoid this area”; “take this other route”; “don’t take a taxi alone at night.”

One rider recommended these taxi safety specifics to avoid unwanted attention for just being herself—a woman:

Check the plates of a taxi before entering.
Cover a short skirt or a low-cut blouse with a sweater.
Have money ready to pay so you can get your change and get out quickly.
When you step out of a taxi, don’t go anywhere until the driver has pulled away.

Now that women-only transportation has resurfaced and spread like pink wildfire, the current debate is whether it creates a divide between genders rather than a solution. As the following video shows, many women and pink companies alike acknowledge that their women-only transportation may be a quick fix to a problem that runs deeper culturally and socially.

“When both sexes are respected, we will not need “pink” or “blue,” says one woman who has been driving Pink Taxis in Mexico City for ten years.

Still, without safe transportation, women are less likely to take advantage of urban resources. This results in marginalization and less community participation, which in turn reinforces old gender role stereotypes.

Women riding a women-only train in Mumbai, India, showing how pink transportation can advance women's rights and gender equality around the world (image © Madhav Pai).

While in and of itself, the pink movement may not solve systemic gender inequality and male violence against women, it does put the topic in the collective forefront. In concert with governments and human rights’ organizations, it increases awareness of gender issues, impacts mindsets that appear “inherent” and “unchangeable,” and empowers women.

The Worldwide Power of Pink

From east to west and north to south around the globe, women are coming together to materialize a movement that has fought an uphill battle.

In Sivas, Turkey, women drive Pink Taxis. The doors are stamped with wings, a symbol that promises safe travel to women and children.
In Lahore, Pakistan, Zar Aslam, who is President and CEO of the Environmental Protection Fund, began the Pink Rickshaw initiative. She invites women to apply to own and run their own rickshaws.

A pink rickshaw, driven by a female driver in Pakistan, illustrating how women advance women's rights and gender equality through pink transportation (image © Sara Naseem).

As pink rickshaw drivers, Pakistani women become entrepreneurs and advance women’s rights.
Photo by Sara Naseem for The Environmental Protection Fund

In New York, SheRides provides a car app “focused on the needs of women,” where women call on other women to transport them safely day or night.
In Dubai, women who drive Pink Taxis, dress in pink headscarves. They greet female travelers at the airport.
In Mexico City, Atenas (Athena), a pink bus line transports women to and from work.
On Women’s International Day, UN Women launched 50 women-only buses in
Mexico City. On its side, each bus features a historical female figure.
© Amy Graglia

Many other countries, such as Brazil, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and Egypt, are also seeing pink.

Oh, I See Pink

Wanting to experience the pink movement first-hand, I decided to take my first pink transportation, and the metro in Mexico City offered the perfect opportunity. Rush hour looks like this:

A crowd of men waiting for the metro in Mexico City, illustrating a safety issue for women, addressed by pink transportation in its work for women's rights and gender equality (image © Sergio Beristain).

Feeling like a sheep entering an already packed corral and struggling to maneuver the mob, I spied a pink sign declaring solo mujeres (women only) over an entrance protected by two female security guards in pink vests. I shoved my way past the pink signs and found myself onboard, shoulder to shoulder in a metro car with just women. There was an unmistakable change in the atmosphere. Women were smiling, laughing, and engaging with one another.

At a stop near the end of the line, several men filed in and the car became quiet. No more jokes, no more smiling, no more eye contact. The women made a clear effort to avoid unwanted attention, which they now expected to receive.

In that pink, packed metro car in Mexico City, I too had experienced freedom from judgment and fear. Once the men stepped on and the dynamic changed, I noticed my guard went up, as did that of the women beside me. Together, we intentionally assumed a reserved composure. This is why women around the globe have declared that the speed in which cultural and social change occurs is not sufficient for their immediate safety needs.

Though gender separation can sound harsh and anti-progressive, it is one way to challenge the unacceptable advances that many women experience on public transportation. Pink transportation will have a role in the world until the issue of gender equality improves—until more men and women have “Oh, I See” Pink Moments of their own.

A woman flying with a pink umbrella, symbolizing women's efforts to advance women's rights to mobility and gender equality (image © Unsplash/Pexels).

Airborne woman takes mobility into her own hands.

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